Jen is currently reading 'Olive Trees around my table' by Cecile Yazbek. It is the story of Cecile Yazbek, a Lebanese girl growing up in South Africa under the shadow of apartheid. The trauma of growing up in Apartheid eventually led to Cecile migrating to Australia in 1986.
The following is an interesting observation of Cecile's:
'The Australian way of communicating, I soon learned, has a reserve about it. South Africans have a reputation for speaking their minds and being overly proactive which has made some very successful. But apartheid poisoned many white South Africans with a sense of entitlement, something we can be aware of and attempt to moderate. In Australia I found an invisible class system based on accent, geographic location or suburb in Sydney; the criteria differed from those in South Africa, where occupation was a class indicator that, along with colour, had been the most obvious sign on which all of life was predicated.'
I was rapt to come across it whilst reading this book, as it eloquently describes what we couldn't put into words.
The following is an interesting observation of Cecile's:
'The Australian way of communicating, I soon learned, has a reserve about it. South Africans have a reputation for speaking their minds and being overly proactive which has made some very successful. But apartheid poisoned many white South Africans with a sense of entitlement, something we can be aware of and attempt to moderate. In Australia I found an invisible class system based on accent, geographic location or suburb in Sydney; the criteria differed from those in South Africa, where occupation was a class indicator that, along with colour, had been the most obvious sign on which all of life was predicated.'
I was rapt to come across it whilst reading this book, as it eloquently describes what we couldn't put into words.